Gaza City: At the heart of Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, the al-Ahli Arab Hospital the only Christian medical facility in the Strip is battling overwhelming odds. Its director, Dr. Maher Ayyad, paints a grim picture of life under siege: families huddled in makeshift tents without electricity or clean water, patients lying in hallways and gardens, and doctors forced to choose who lives and who dies.
The United Nations has already confirmed famine in Gaza City, while the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warn of the deepening disaster. A UN-supported community kitchen has resumed serving meals for 5,000 people daily, yet food, medicine, and essential supplies remain woefully inadequate.
For Dr. Ayyad and his colleagues, every day is a struggle to provide even the most basic care. “We lose many patients,” he admits, “because sometimes there are several requiring urgent surgery at the same time, and we must choose who has the better chance of survival.”
Beds are scarce, forcing doctors to discharge patients prematurely even those still on ventilators. The shortages extend beyond space and equipment: antibiotics, gauze, surgical instruments, and trained specialists are all in critically short supply. Much of the staff are junior doctors, residents, or medical students working as volunteers.
Despite treating between 600 and 700 patients daily, the hospital is unable to keep up with the influx of war-wounded and malnourished children.
Al-Ahli Hospital is not alone in its suffering. “Other hospitals face the same problem,” Dr. Ayyad explains, highlighting how medical centers across Gaza are pooling resources in a fragile network of solidarity. As the Strip’s sole Christian hospital, al-Ahli works closely with local authorities and fellow health providers to share whatever supplies they can muster in a bid to save lives.
Still, the humanitarian picture remains bleak. The blockade has strangled access to fuel, medicine, and medical equipment, leaving Gaza’s healthcare system on the brink of collapse.
For Dr. Ayyad, the crisis is more than medical it is moral. “War is death, and peace means life,” he says. “When we lose patients from any religion, we are sorry. We are all human.”
His appeal is simple but urgent: stop the war. Not just for Gaza, but for Israelis, Palestinians, and the wider region. “We would like to have peace and live together,” he insists, calling on world leaders to find the wisdom to end the cycle of violence.